I wrote several posts on the question of exceptions and scruples. This is a subject I intend to address again, but my focus over the past year was on the freedom of pastors to teach on a subject where they disagree with their confession of faith. My conclusions were that if a pastor is granted an exception, he is free to teach it and the presbytery cannot prohibit that teaching. However, a pastor being granted an exception does necessarily free him in his practice, and does not grant that exception to the congregation by proxy.

I wrote an extensive analysis of the confessionalism of the Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians (ECO). ECO and the EPC are closely related, and my hope in that analysis was to provide a charitable and robust critique of ECO’s confessional approach in order to better foster a deeper partnership between our churches.